A guide to all tactics and strategies in Blitz, split into two sections, armor and mobility.

Basic (Part I) and Advanced (Part II)

It is recommended for newcomers to only read through the Part I's of each sections and learn those skills before moving on the the Part II's. Likewise, if you are a skilled player, feel free to skip the Part I's.

Armor

Table of Contents

Angling

Sidescraping and Hull Down

Face Hugging

Rocking and Wiggling

Angling

How many of you have learned the Pythagorean Theorem? If you have, then you will agree with me that: if a line cuts through a square with sides 100 mm long at a forty five degree angle, the length of that line would be around 1.5 (square root of two to be exact) times longer than the sides. Now, how about we imagine that square to be a 100x100 mm block of armor, and the diagonal line to be the path of a tank shell? That shell would have a harder time penetrating at a forty five degree angle than at a zero degree angle.

This applies to World of Tanks: Blitz. The more you angle your tank, the stronger your armor is. Using the formula penetrating power required = armor thickness / cos (angle of armor), you can determine how much extra armor you get from angling. This is why, when you drive your tank out in the open, you should always angle as much as possible. So when I drive my Tiger I, I should angle my tank at sixty degrees, turning my 100 mm of frontal armor into an equivalent of 200 mm of armor? No, because, if you angle your frontal armor at sixty degrees, your 80 mm of side armor will have a thirty degree angle and will be easily penetrated by most of your opponents. Generally, angling the front of your tank at fifteen to thirty degrees is the best you can do, but of course, there are exceptions. Using applications such as Armor Inspector can help you determine the perfect angle for your tanks.

Spoiler

Keep in mind two things: Firstly, a lot of tanks have their frontal armor pre-angled, so you can angle your front less and sides more to balance it out (some tanks like the tier 8 Russian heavy IS-3 have pike nose armor, which, to achieve maximum thickness all around, you should not angle at all in). In the above scenario, the Tiger I I used as an example has very little pre-angled armor, which is why armor is not one of its strengths. The second thing is that if some part of your armor is at a seventy degree angle, EVERY single AP, APCR, and HEAT shell will bounce on you, unless their gun is so big and your armor so thin, in which case they will "overmatch" your armor (search overmatch system on the forums for more information).

Sidescraping and Hull Down

Now, the problem with many tanks is that if you angle your front too much, you expose your side armor for the enemy to shoot, and if you angle too little, your front will generally not be strong enough to prevent shots from penetrating (all tanks have weak points, where the armor is thinner or pre-angled at a flatter angle). Now how do we fix this? By sidescraping!

Side scraping is when you show your side at a sixty degree or higher angle that no one can penetrate. But you said that if you angle your side a ton then your front is weak! Yes, that's true, and that's why you use an obstacle to block your front from view of the enemy, only showing them your side at that crazy sixty or seventy degree angle. When you're ready to shoot, you can slowly pull back until you see your enemy, shoot, and drive forward again. Think of driving out backwards from behind a building and shooting like that, except instead of showing a weak and flat side, you drive out with an auto bounce side. You want to do this every single time you're peek a booming. The only the the enemy can shoot are your tracks, auto bounce side armor, and your turret, if you have one. And don't worry, in most cases, the turret has the strongest and thickest armor your tank has.

Spoiler

You pull back to shoot, then quickly drive forward again, preventing the enemy from shooting your front.

Which leads to the hull down strategy. When you hull down, it basically means hull covered— your hull is covered by an obstacle or a slight hill in front of you. This strategy is best for tanks with good gun depression, how far you can lower your gun downwards (for more information just search up "gun depression" on the forums). If you don't have enough gun depression, it's hard to get shots on people when playing on hilly terrain because you have to drive over the top of the hill, exposing yourself to the whole enemy team to shoot at, just to get off one shot. With gun depression, you can climb just over the hill, exposing only your strong turret, and take a shot off like that.

Spoiler

The hull of the tank is blocked by the rock.

Face Hugging

You should always be using obstacles and hills to your advantage to hull down. But sometimes, the enemy just rushes you, or there are no obstacles around. If you're caught in a situation like this, and you have that amazing turret armor great for hull down, then you can do what's called face hugging. This is when you drive straight in front of an enemy and just keep pushing into him, never letting him pull away from you. I know, doesn't sound like the smartest move. But if it's just you two, one on one, and the opponent is in a tank that has very little gun depression, then this is the perfect tactic.

Spoiler

The tank on the left can only hit the tank on the right's turret, which is extremely well armored. On the other hand, the tank on the right has easy shots on the left tank's weak turret.

When face hugging an enemy, your making it so that the only available shot on you is your turret and upper plate of armor. Tanks without much gun depression may not even be able to shoot at your upper plate, and even if they can, the upper plate is generally the second strongest piece of armor on your tank, behind the turret. This strategy prevents the enemy from getting shots at your weaker armor and allows you to pick them apart with ease (do not face hug tanks with similar or better turret armor and/or gun depression). You can also side hug as well. However, just because your turret is great, doesn't mean it's invincible. This leads to my last tactic in Part I.

Rocking and Wiggling

When face hugging an opponent with a weak spot on your turret, such as a cupola, make sure between shots you wiggle your turret back and forth. It may look stupid, but if you continuously move your turret randomly, it makes it hard for the enemy to aim at such a small moving target. This doesn't just apply to when face hugging. When out in the open, be sure to be moving, adjusting your angle, and driving forward and backwards when one on one. Even if you've found the perfect angle of your tank, sometimes it might not be enough. Readjusting your angle and moving around fixes this problem.

Let's say the enemy has 128 mm of penetration and when angled right, you have 120 mm of protection all around. By rocking back and forth, side to side, you can over angle your front to about 145 mm of protection and quickly rock back to make your side armor 145 mm of protection. The enemy will be aiming at your front, then seeing that he can't penetrate it, will switch to aim at your weaker side armor, then, seeing that you turned again so that your side armor is now extremely angled, will panic and rush a shot into you, most likely bouncing or just tracking you. Now you can take your time to aim at his weakspots.

Spoiler

Notice how this tank has strong frontal armor almost everywhere except for the cupolas on top. You can make those cupolas hard to hit by rocking back and forth.

Mobility

Table of Contents

Flanking

Scouting

Rushing to a Position

Circling

Flanking

The first thing you should ever know about using mobility is to use that mobility to flank. This means instead of using your medium tank, with less armor, alpha damage, and health than a heavy tank, like a KV-4, you should be constantly finding places where you can shoot the enemy from the sides. Flanking enemies not only damages them badly, it puts them in a terrible position, forcing them to either back out of a strong position or turn to face you, therefore exposing his sides to your teammates at the frontline.

Spoiler

It's important to remember that if the enemy does decide to face you, you should back up behind cover and wait until he turns away. Even if he backs up and starts coming for you, it doesn't matter. Mobility is your advantage. You should not try to stay and deal with him, and instead should find another way to flank. If you were in a tank with armor as its main strength, then it makes sense to continue popping out to take shots, but since mobility is your advantage, you should avoid taking shots.

Scouting

In the game, there are two types of scouting. The first type of scouting is called passive scouting. This is where you find a position where you think the enemy will pass by and hide behind concealment such as bushes and trees to allow your teammates to continue shooting at them, while you continue to remain hidden. In this case you should remember to never fire a shot as it will alert the enemies of your presence.

Spoiler

This tank is covered by the bushes and has an open line of sight, meaning that he will spot enemies driving by that can't see him because of the bushes.

The one most mediums do well at is active spotting. Generally people associate this with suicide scouting, when you run into the enemy spawn area and spot the whole enemy team, just to get killed ten seconds after. This just results in your team being one man down, because after a few seconds, the enemy team will start to disappear again, because they need to be continuously spotted. The proper way to active scout is to rush to a forward position, keeping in mind an escape route you can take if someone charges you, and pop out from behind an object to see who's passing by. Sometimes you can find a spot just outside the enemy view range, and just keep sitting there, spotting the enemy, and taking shots. However, most of the time, the enemy sees you as well and you can only manage to take one shot before waiting behind cover again. Just wait until the enemies disappear for a second and pop out again.

This is not only helpful in getting early damage in on the enemies, but also reports the enemy positions and slows them down as they all stop in their tracks and start aiming at the object you hiding behind, waiting for you to peak out again. You can also active scout by, instead of stopping behind an object and peaking out, just keep on driving and the moment you spot the enemy turn back around and get to safety. This is riskier, and should be only done in very fast tanks, but a lot more fun.

Rushing to a Position

Rushing to a position is a tactic of mobility used very often on certain maps. A lot of maps have an important key position that, once taken control of, gives the team a huge advantage. Hills are one example of places that fast mediums and lights rush to as it gives them a height advantage, and once the heavy tanks and tank destroyers arrive, they can pull back to find a flanking opportunity or stay on the hill and take opportunistic shots at enemies.

The perfect example of this tactic is on the map Mines. The main strategy, and maybe even one and only strategy on this map is to rush the hill. If one team secures the hill, then their chances of winning are way higher. This is why many people love seeing that their team has many medium tanks on it when the map is Mines, because it's their jobs to rush up the hill, take out the enemy mediums, and hold the hill until the heavies come. Once they secure it, they can leisurely spot sniping tanks using camouflage as their main gameplay strategy, take shots at enemies all over the map, and drop behind some surprised enemies when the time is right.

Spoiler

This E50M used his speed to climb up onto the hill on Mines, and as you can see, he is above the enemy tanks and has the advantage.

Circling

One of the most fun things to do in the game, circling is when you use your mobility and speed to circle behind enemy heavies and heavily armored tank destroyers, preventing them a shot at you and allowing you to shoot where they don't have their armor advantage: their rear. Heavy tanks and tank destroyers are a fast tanks favorite targets. Since tank destroyers often don't have turrets, they can just drive right behind them, and using their superior speed, keep that gun facing the other way and the tank destroyer's rear facing you. Heavies are harder, as they have turrets that prevent you from just sitting behind them; you have to try to track them and just stay on the other side of where the turret is facing.

Spoiler

Notice how the German tank doesn't have his gun facing the other tank. This is because his turret traverse is too slow to catch up the the fast medium tank, meaning the medium tank can keep circling the German tank without taking any damage.

Be careful not to get carried away when you see a single heavy or tank destroyer early on in the game. Most likely they will have support from behind that's hidden, and if you move up to circle him, then they will put tons of shots into your rear. Generally you should wait till the end of the game when the enemy is worn out and scattered to circle, or, if six enemies spotted on one side of the map and you see the last tank on the other side, you can safely circle them without interference.

When I saw you put "armor thickness / cos" I was like no, not high school again! Awesome guide that was a great read and very informative, a guide that even I would read, considering I will only read one other person's guides. I really like the extensive detail you put and all the pictures and diagrams. If I could give you +100 I would, unfortunately my +1 will have to do.

When I saw you put "armor thickness / cos" I was like no, not high school again! Awesome guide that was a great read and very informative, a guide that even I would read, considering I will only read one other person's guides. I really like the extensive detail you put and all the pictures and diagrams. If I could give you +100 I would, unfortunately my +1 will have to do.

are the other guides MY guides? *blushes*

but seriously. this is a great guide, and you explained everything (that i read) very well, although maybe no so easily to the younger guys, or even the older crowd. you have to remember that most of the people did the Pythagorean Theorem decades ago, or have 5 years or more until they talk about it.

"I'm not a sore loser, l just prefer to win and when I don't I get furious." ~ Ron Swanson

"If you can't figure out how to win in tier 8 against a tier 10, you're not going to be winning in tier 10" ~ PC9684

but seriously. this is a great guide, and you explained everything (that i read) very well, although maybe no so easily to the younger guys, or even the older crowd. you have to remember that most of the people did the Pythagorean Theorem decades ago, or have 5 years or more until they talk about it.

idk, i wrote it all whenever i had like five minutes to spare over the past few days/weeks. This part probably took around two to three hours, and i have part two of course, so thats like even more. Thanks for the positive feedback guys, and for those people, no this is not for club wargaming, this is for the tank academy contest.